This report contains data from the Ruffalo Noel Levitz satisfaction and priorities surveys, which institutions use to help prioritize institutional changes. In turn, RNL regularly reports the collective findings from across the nation to identify trends in college student satisfaction. Here are some of the findings from this year’s college student satisfaction report.

Students’ calls for improvements—a sampling

Across higher education, students are concerned about their ability to register for the classes they need without conflicts.

At four-year private institutions, students prioritized their concerns about the availability of financial aid and their perception that tuition may not be a worthwhile investment.

Students at four-year public institutions indicated concerns with their perception that faculty may not be fair and unbiased in their treatment of individual students.

At community colleges, students were concerned about academic advisors’ knowledge and the timeliness of faculty feedback.

Students at career and private schools placed a priority on the equipment in the lab facilities being kept up to date.

At a glance: How satisfied are today’s college students?

Overall, college student satisfaction for the following six data sets has remained steady in recent years, with nontraditional learners continuing to reflect higher overall satisfaction scores:

As shown above, the majority of today’s college students are satisfied with their college experiences, but there is room for improvement. To move the needle on student satisfaction, RNL recommends that institutions drill down into the specific survey items measured on the RNL surveys and to intentionally respond to identified challenges.

Do you know how satisfied your students are? I encourage you to assess student satisfaction on your campus regularly, and to compare your students’ perceptions with national data on student satisfaction and priorities for your institution type.

Call 800.876.1117 or email me to learn more about RNL Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys or the 2017 college student satisfaction report. I will be happy to discuss how campuses are using satisfaction data to make positive changes that matter to their students.

More than 400 colleges and universities use the 100-item RNL College Student Inventory to drive their early identification and early intervention strategies so they can increase retention and completion. This proven, early-alert assessment quickly spots trouble—and identifies each student’s strengths—much earlier than most programs that are designed to flag at-risk students and sound off early alerts.

Example—how it works—a first-year named Sarah (not her real name)

With a 3.4 GPA in high school, first-year student Sarah didn’t appear to be at risk, but even before her classes began, Sarah’s advisor and student services team were alerted to a number of her motivational risks immediately following orientation when Sarah completed the RNL College Student Inventory, part of RNL Student Success.

Sarah’s top 3 requests (of 25 possible)
I would like to talk with a counselor about my general attitude toward school.
I would like some training to improve my reading skills.
I would like some help selecting an educational plan that will prepare me to get a good job.

In response, Sarah’s institution took appropriate steps to intervene to keep her on track to graduation.

Learn how to better serve each individual adult learner, traditional-age learner, and other groups

Using 20-minute assessments, your advisors and student services teams will be equipped to:

Move beyond mid-term appraisals and exit interviews.

Understand how to provide better, more individualized service from day one that connects with each incoming learner.

Learn what motivates each individual student and which services they are most receptive to.

Recently I’ve had the privilege of working with a panel of high school counselors who are passionate about helping students connect to the right colleges. One takeaway? First-generation students are different, they say. You can’t treat them the same as everyone else. It simply doesn’t work.

Counselors: A go-to resource for first-generation students

Before we explore what’s different, here’s one reason why counselors are crucial for helping to recruit first-generation students:

As you can see, high school counselors are 2X as important as college websitesAND 7x as important as parents for providing first-generation students with vital information about college financial aid—one of the main sorting factors for these students as they choose which college to attend. So when recruiters are looking for ways to increase their impact, building relationships with counselors is a strong starting point. [Read more…]

This post is drawn from a more detailed article in University Business.

In today’s environment, it has become increasingly difficult for some traditional, four-year institutions to meet enrollment goals for first-year students. Hence, enrolling transfer students brings a number of advantages to campuses. College transfer students typically generate higher average net tuition revenue than freshmen, do not create large pressures on housing, and enroll in upper-level courses that typically have capacity. These benefits should motivate campuses to shift the balance of new student enrollment to include a larger portion of transfers.

However, changes in the higher education marketplace are now making it more challenging to enroll transfer students, too. The combined effects of the declining number of high school graduates and the recent decline in enrollments at two-year public institutions has made the college transfer student market increasingly competitive. National enrollments are down, 2.6 percent lower in fall 2016 than in 2015, at the largest source of transfer students for four-year public and private institutions, two-year public institutions.

Enrollment outcomes for college transfer students behind goal

In addition to the reduced available pool of college transfer students, transfer students are harder to track and communicate with than traditional students. According to RNL research, more than 50 percent of transfer applications to private institutions are “stealth,” meaning students were not part of the institutions’ inquiry pool prior to submitting their applications. Admissions offices at four-year institutions cannot, of course, actively recruit transfer students at other four-year institutions. Paired with the reality that transfer students from two-year publics may not transfer directly following degree attainment, waiting two years or more, it is difficult for institutions to engage in active marketing campaigns to generate interest from potential transfer students, having to rely more on “boots on the ground” recruiting and websites. [Read more…]

Use this checklist of seven critical data points to evaluate the fall 2017 impact of New York State’s free tuition and Excelsior Scholarship Program if your private institution is reliant on New York State enrollments

Since April 8, 2017, when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the implementation of the Excelsior Scholarship program (a free tuition program for students attending public two-year and four-year institutions in New York), private institutions in the state have mostly been in a wait-and-see mode. Because the announcement came just before the May 1 priority decision deadline for students, and details of the program were limited, it was difficult to assess the potential impact of the program on private institutions (see a previous post from the time of the announcement).

Since then, some have weathered the free tuition announcement better than others. The reasons vary, but for every private institution, analyzing data is critical to future decisions. Below are seven data points to assess to quantify the potential enrollment impact of the Excelsior Scholarship program on your enrollment.

1. Did you lose late enrollments this year after the April 8 announcement from the state of New York? For those campuses that have rolling admission, did you see changes in the number of inquiries, applications, admits, and enrolled students generated from the state of New York, or in their conversion and yield rates?

2. Did your deposit rates of New York students change after the April 8 announcements for those that were admitted prior to April 8?

3. Did your melt rate change for students from New York with incomes less than $100,000? Are your melt rates higher this year than in prior years? Is the proportion of melt you experienced higher for those students who had family income less than or equal to $100,000?

4. Did your yield rates change for those students with family incomes less than or equal to $100,000? It would be useful to also dissect the data for this group of students by academic ability. The Excelsior Scholarship requires students to complete 30 credits per year, and students with lower academic achievement may not have been as swayed by the Excelsior Scholarship opportunity as higher-achieving students.

5. Any shifts in competitor institutions? It is critical to monitor your competitor lists each year by requesting a lost admits analysis through the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. If you have done this in years past, you may see a shift in the number of students who chose a New York public institution in fall 2017.

6. Did retention rates of students change for students with family incomes less than or equal to $100,000?

7. Did your transfer-out rates change? Retention rates are one piece of the puzzle, but identifying your transfer-out rates to New York public institutions for students with family incomes less than or equal to $100,000 will allow you to determine whether the Excelsior scholarship may have influenced the students’ decisions to transfer out of your institution. If you track academic transcript requests, you may be able to compare transcript requests sent to New York public institutions this year versus prior years. If you do not track transcript requests, your lost enrolled students could be tracked through the National Clearinghouse to find out where they attended after leaving your institution.

The fall term has now begun—is your institution doing anything differently this year to increase your student retention rates and help more students succeed? As classes begin, take a minute to compare the effectiveness of your existing student success programs and services with those of other institutions. While there is comfort and success in “the way we’ve always done it,” there may also be room to grow and become even one percent better.

Three award-winning programs for college student success

Three institutions from across the country received Lee Noel and Randi Levitz Retention Excellence Awards at the 2017 National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing, and Retention, convened by Ruffalo Noel Levitz from July 26-28 in Denver, Colorado. These winning programs were all unique and tailored by student type, institution type, and available resources, and all of these programs pulled together data from multiple sources to anticipate students’ needs.

University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida): The university has a Student Success Case Management program to identify and serve at-risk students. This individualized and data-informed approach has helped USF raise student retention rates to 90 percent for the 2015 cohort and is on track to surpass the 70 percent six-year graduation rate later in 2017, which will unlock up to $15 million in performance-based funding. The individualization of the Student Success Case Management program is considered core to achieving this goal and broke a three-year performance plateau.

Walsh University (North Canton, Ohio): Walsh University employs a campuswide, student-centered program to connect students to key academic resources and social supports to ensure student success. The holistic, intentional approach relies on a collaborative culture across campus and has resulted in an overall student retention rate of 83 percent.

Southeast Technical Institute (Sioux Falls, South Dakota): Southeast Technical has developed a retention process called Cares to capture data about student needs and meet those needs directly via empowered employees or referral to specific retention programs. Outcomes include 84 percent persistence for the new student Seminar Course, 92 percent persistence for students meeting the Attendance Challenge, and 96 percent persistence for the JumpStart program.

What do these campuses have in common? They are all using student-specific, data-driven, individualized interventions and are empowering every department to engage with students and intervene personally, which includes a meaningful, one-on-one relationship with each student. These recognized programs demonstrate that colleges and universities can truly have an impact on the success of their students and serve as national models for others to use and build upon. Dr. Lee Noel captured this concept many years ago when he advised “give the student what they need, before they know they need it.” With the help of data and technology, the relationships at the core of these winning programs are informing the work caring individuals do to anticipate students’ needs and solve student success challenges.

Learn how these campuses raised their student retention rates during a free webinar

For years, admissions and recruitment teams have developed marketing and communication plans to build demand, generate applications, and optimize yields. These plans ensure that key messages are sent out to provide students and their families with the information they need to make timely decisions along the enrollment pathway. But what happens after the student is enrolled and committed? Do you have a plan to extend this type of communication and relationship management through to college completion? Are you sending key messages at the right times to influence re-enrollment?

When I work with colleges and universities on their student success initiatives, I often recommend developing a post-enrollment communication flow to continue communicating with students and families to increase college completion. I like to call this a CAN Plan.

CAN stands for Congratulate, Alert and Nudge (CAN). A CAN Plan equips you to communicate persuasively with enrolled students as they attempt to persist in their classes, make progress, and re-enroll from term to term. Your plan should include many customized messages informed by pre-enrollment data and information you collect after students enroll.

How to build a well-designed CAN Plan to influence students to re-enroll

Just as you customize messages for prospective students, you must also customize messages for enrolled students. Let me share three examples of ways to do this. Here is the first way:

This attrition curve clusters students into three groups based on a statistical analysis of each student’s likelihood to retain, drawn from pre-enrollment data. You can use the pre-enrollment information to target messaging to nudge incoming students to take advantage of student services and refer them to resources that satisfy their needs. I recommend sending more and different messages for students in the middle of your curve (about two-thirds of your new students) versus students who are already likely to retain (about 20 percent of your population) based on your analysis.

How is online shopping for colleges changing?

Download a new infographic from Ruffalo Noel Levitz to see eight highlighted findings from our latest e-Expectations survey of high school students and their parents conducted by Ruffalo Noel Levitz, NRCCUA, CollegeWeekLive, and OmniUpdate. Watch for the full study to be released in fall 2017.

Enrollment referrals from high school counselors can make a big difference in college student enrollments. By building strong relationships with counselors, colleges and universities can develop “pipelines” that bring students year after year.